Deeplinks Blog posts about EFF Europe

When technological change disrupts industries, they can respond in one of two ways. First, they can adapt to this change by delivering innovative new products, even if this means cannibalizing their older products. This shift of the mapping industry from producing printed street maps to providing data for GPS devices is a good example. This is not to say that individual companies necessarily survived the shift, but the industry as a whole—and consumers—are better off for having moved on from established business models to embrace new technological possibilities.

Coordinated enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights—copyright, patents and trade marks—has been an elusive goal for Europe. Back in 2005, the European Commission struggled to introduce a directive known as IPRED2 that would criminalize commercial-scale IP infringements, but abandoned the attempt in 2010 due to jurisdictional problems. IP maximalists took another run at it through ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, but that misguided treaty was roundly defeated in 2012 when the European Parliament rejected it, 478 votes to 39.

Democracy makes the job of our trade negotiators much harder. The light of democratic oversight makes it difficult for them to pander to the incessant demands of industry lobbyists, while ignoring the broader public interest. And the transparency that is central to democratic systems of governments impedes their efforts to hide what they are doing behind closed doors.

Tell Europe your views on CopyrightThe European Commission's open consultation on copyright ends in less than a week on Mar. 5. It's a rare and important opportunity for anyone who uses the Internet— whether you are a student or artists, librarian or entrepreneur— to influence the future of innovation policy in the region.

Three major British privacy organizations on Thursday launched an important legal challenge to the United Kingdom’s participation in the massive global surveillance scandal. To support the case as an expert witness, I submitted a 32-page statement laying out much that is publicly known about the National Security Agency’s PRISM and UPSTREAM programs, and explained how US law offers no protections for non-US persons against spying by the agency.